' The petitioner is accused of being privy to the offence of causing the death of her husband by administering hi n an insecticide mixed in a medicine. The petitioner along with her husband was travelling to Karachi on 3rd of October 1973, in a railway train when the deceased Abdus sattar started vomiting. The petitioner was in a women's compartment while Abdus Sattar was sitting in a men's compartment with one Abdus Salam a resident of Lahore. The deceased was removed to the Ladies' compartment and he breathed his last at Khanewal Railway Station.
2. The police took hold of the dead body and after going into certain legal formalities sent the dead body to Lahore. The doctor who performed the post-mortem examination took samples of intestines of the deceased and sent them for chemical examination. The chemical opinion shows that the death had occurred due to the administration of a poison of the nature of insecticide.
3. The case was registered against the petitioner and her alleged paramour Mumtaz Ahmad on 11th of October 197 4. She was arrested on 13th of October 1973 and made a statement before a Magistrate under section 164, Cr. P. C. On 16th of October 1973. This is being pressed into service by the prosecution as a confessional statement. After narrating the circumstances in which her husband met her death she said in her statement that Mumtaz her co-accused a cousin of her husband had developed illicit liaison with her because her husband had been sufferin2 from tubercolosis for a long time. She also said that it was four days after the death of her husband that Mumtaz told her that he had got her released from her marital bond would marry her. He threatened her that if she divulged this matter to anyone else he would kill her also.
4. The petitioner applied for bail to the learned Sessions Judge, Multan who dismissed her application.
5. On 7th of November 1973, when I admitted this petition for hearing I directed that the Investigating Officer shall be present on the date of hearing. He is not present and the learned counsel for the State is not in a position in any way to supplement or contradict the submissions made by the learned counsel for the petitioner. It is submitted by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the petitioner is a woman and is detained in judicial lock-up with a suckling babe. It is also submitted that the allege confessional statement is exculpatory in nature and does not involve the petitioner in the commission of the offence. It is his submission that the learned Sessions Judge in refusing bail to the petitioner did not exercise his discretion in a proper manner.
6. 1 agree with the contentions of the learned counsel. The petitioner has been in jail for over a month with a suckling babe. It has not been brought out in evidence so far that she has committed any offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life. I, therefore, direct that the petitioner shall be released on bail in the sum of Rs, 10,000 (Rupees ten thousand) with one surety in the like amount to the satisfaction of the Assistant Commissioner, Multan.